Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1911 — H Little father [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

H Little father

Boy of Cwttoe finds Himself at the Head of a family

By Hbner C. Watkins

There are men who, though they have not had refining influence in their boyhood, are nevertheless natural gentlemen. Such a one is my friend Grigsby, a successful business man, prominent in his circle and possessing a very tender heart I dined with him and his wife recently. While we were at dinner his son, a stalwart youngster of twelve or thirteen, came in late from participating in a baseball match. I noticed the look of pride and affection with which his father regarded him. > “Tour boy is a manly little fellow,** I remarked. "Well, yes, hut he hasn’t the advantages to make him so that I had at his age.” “How Is that?” "No advantages at all, or, rather, I had a responsibility thrown on me at twelve that brought out all there was In me. When I was my boy’s age I was a father.” “A father r* “Yes. I’ll tell j-ou about It later.** After dinner Grigsby and I went out on to the porch to smoke, and he told me the following story: “My father died when I was seven years old, and from that time I began to be a man. I wasn’t much of a man at first, but I grew in manliness faster than in body or in years. My mother died when I was twelve, and I was turned oat to make a living as best I could. I had saved a few dollars, which I Invested In the newspaper business, and managed in this

way to put food into my stomach. I used to steep anywhere at that time— I don’t now remember, or, rather. 1 don’t wish to remember, where. I recollect one place, a hayloft over a stable, to which I gained access by making friends with the coachman. It is impressed on my memory because I took my daughter there.” “Your daughter! What do you mean?’/ "I was going home one night—l mean to the loft—feeling very blue. 1 was thinking of my mother, who had died a few months before, and wishing I might find her in my sleeping place, even if it was a stable. Suddenly I heard the cry of a young babe, which sounds more like a young rooster’s first crow than anything else. Turning, in an angle formed by a stoop and a basement wall of a house I saw a bundle wrapped in a bathing toweL “I unwrapped it at one end and uncovered the face of a girl baby. I was wondering what In the world to do with her when she gave me something like a smile. This brought a sudden desire to hold on to her. Fearing some one would rob me of my find, I covered up the face, and, rolling the whole thing in some unsold newspapers, I tucked It under my arm and went on to my home over the stable. ! “Fortunately It was summer, and the weather was hot I say fortunately, for a baby can stand no end of beat but doesn’t thrive on cold. I didn’t know it at the lime, bat I did know that the child must have something to eat » “The mother who had abandoned it had rolled np in the bundle a bottle filled with milk. I suppose she thought that a first feed would give her child a better chance to live' I knew enongh to put the nipple into the baby’s mouth’, and It began to pull right away. “This was playing family man with a vengeance. I don’t know that I and my family bould have been more comfortable in a brownstone honse. I certainly wouldn't have been as happy. I had wanted a dog for company, and I thought the baby beat the dog all hollow. “Then I made a sheet of the bathing towel and put the baby to bed on a hay mattress. Then t cuddled down beside her and went to sleep, thinking

that I most tell mother all about my adventure in the morning. For years after mother's death I thought at times I must tell her things. “I didn't worry about the family breakfast till the sun came in through a crack and woke me up. 1 heard a cooing beside me and remembered my find. Raising myself on my elbow, there was the baby trying to get her big toe in her mouth. She had kicked her legs loose and wasn’t very mUch covered. 1 bent over her, and she smiled at me. “But it wasn’t long before she began that rooster crowing, and about the same time I heard my friend the coachman below doing his morning stable chores. I tried to quiet the child, but, though I didn't know it, nothing would do it but some breakfast. There was the bottle, but nothing in it The baby squalled louder and louder, and 1, fearing the coachman would get on to my harboring a family besides myself in the loft and evict us, tried to stop the crying by taking the baby up and walking it as I had seen fathers do before. While I was thus engaged the trap at the top of the stairs leading from below opened, and there were the head and shoulders of Patsy, the coachman. He was looking straight at me with wonder on his face, which changed to an explosion of laughter. “‘Be dad!’ he exclaimed. 'l’ve done it meaelf many a night when the day was breakin*. Where in the worrld did ye git the child anyway?* “I explained matters to Patsy and begged him not to turn me out He made no promise, but, taking my bottle, went awuy and presently returned with it full of warm milk. This quieted the baby, and Patsy went downstairs. “Half an hour passed, and I was thinking, as many a father has done whose domestic affairs are keeping him from business, that some other newsboy would get my regular customers away from me, when I heard steps and voices below, and in another moment Patsy lifted the trap. But instead of coming toward me he held it open for some one else. That some one was a benevolent looking gentleman.

"I was playing with the baby’s pink toes at the time and, seeing the comers, turned to look at them. The expression on the gentleman’s face was a composition of wonder, amusement, pity and general sympathy. Coming up to our family, he bent over the baby and put his forefinger into its little hand for it to clasp. Then, turning to me, he asked me to tell him all about myself and my find. “When I had finished he told me that he would send where it would receive propeA attention and when he saw a tear added that if I kept her in Tne loft she would die. He further promised that I should always be informed where she was, and I might visit her from time to time. He told me to carry her Into the house—he being the owner of the premises—and when we arrived he gave me the first real breakfast I bad 4 had In years. When I -had finished he developed a plan by which I might spend a part of my time at school and have something better than a hayloft for a home. “This was only the beginning of his interest in me and my daughter. As

time wore on he did more and more for me. When I was eighteen years old he took me into his counting room. I had a natural adaptation for work-in fact, was never happy except when I was doing something. The consequence was that when I had finished my own work for the day I took hold of that of the lazy fellows In the office, with the result that after awhile they were sent away and I given their work and pay besides my own. In this way I jumped up pretty fast and in two years was getting a good salary. "I gradually lost interest In the daughter I had had with me for so short a time, but I continued occasionally to ask my benefactor, Mr. Merryman, about her. He always assured me that she was being taken care of and some day I might meet her again. Through his kindness to me I inferred that be was doing a good deal for her. "When I was twenty-five years old Mr. Merryman took me into his business as a junior partner, and when I was thirty he retired and left me its manager. Then one day he told me he wished to see me at his house on a certain evening. I went, supposing he wished .to talk to me about the business. When I arrived he introduced me to a young girl about eighteen years old, saying to me, This Is your daughter,' and to her, This is your father, that I have often told you about.’ T suppose the interested, curious expression I saw in her eyes was duplicated in mine. 1 I took her extended hand and felt it clasp mine with emotion. She had long known the story of our first meeting and how we had set up housekeeping in a hayloft” Grigsby stopped at this point in bis story to relight his cigar, which had gone out “Well,” I asked, “did the father and daughter relationship continue?” "First let me tell you about another matter. The clothing of the foundling had been carefully examined by those to whom;l turned her over. They indicated that she had been born of the middle class. But there was not a word, not even a letter, to indicate who her parents were," and the secret has never come ont to this day.” "And the father and, daughter business?" I persisted. “Oh, Mrs. Grigsby can tell that better than I. The parent and child became husband pnd wife. But that’s a story in itself, and Fm no man to go Into tales of love. Ask her."

“HE WAS LOOKING STRAIGHT AT ME.”